Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-31
CHRISTMAS TN MEXICO.
SINGULAR FESTIVITIES, Comfy
UING NINE DAYS.
The Journey of Mary and Joseph
Into Bethlehem, and Birth of
the Christ Child.

AuiO anu VI L
the Christ Child.
Special correspondence of the RECoRD-USIoS.] |
CITY OF MEXICO, December 10, 1887.
In Montezuma's country the celebration |
of Christmastide begins on the 10th of |
December and ends with the 25ti. Nine |
consecutive nights are given up to social |
reunions of semi-religious character, in
Guiding dancing and late suppers; on the
last one christmas eve) everybody attends
midnight mass, and afterwards feels in
duty bound to visit nine different churches
and spend few minus in prayer at each
Therefore until daybreak on the 18th the
streets are filed with people, and so it
happens that when jewellers and worship
ers have retired to their homes to seek
needed rest, Christmas itself is the most
quiet and uninteresting of all days in the
Mexican year.
But there is religion and romance fun
and festivity enough in the nine preced-
ing days, or rather in the nights, to amply
atone for a dull Christmas. This year
those queer yuletide doings termed " the
Posadas" are unusually animated, and in
every patrician casa and parvenu jacal are
joyful family reunions, while invitations
to informal balls are SO many deep per
diem that one cannot attend them all.
THE PosADAs
Are not of Spanish origin, as generally
supposed, although instituted centuries
ago by Spanish priests for the instruction
of the Mexican Indians. The Fathers
aforesaid found the darkened minds of
the conquered Aztecs, fresh from their gro
tesque idol-worship, unable TO grasp the
Christian idea unless it was presented in
some tangible, spectacular form; and this
accounts for many of the remarkable
mummeries which crept into Roman
Catholicism in Mexican churches. Fer
many years, however, the church has not
particularly encouraged this antique mode
of celebrating the birth of Christ-but
still the posadas are kept up, principally
now in private houses, as a harmless
amusement for servants and children,
much as the old-time fiction of Santa
Claus is perpetuated in the United States
The fetes are designed to represent the
Virgin Mary and her spouse, Joseph, on
their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem,
whittier they went just before Christ was
born, in accordance with the decree of
Cesar Augustus that all should come out
of Ga.ilee to be inscribed for taxation
From the proudest Castilian dame down
TO the humblest Indian mother, every
woman in this broad land provides to the
utmost of her ability for the nine festal
nights preceding the anniversary of our
Sayiors advent; and during that time the
distinctions of caste are comparatively
obliterated, and poems and arisocrats min
gle in manner truly patriarchal
An accurate description of the posadas
is impossible, for to thoroughly appreciate
them one must be an inmate of native
casa, in this summer country, where fruits
and flowers are fourishing at their best in
the balmy air of December, and moreover
must be on terms of friendly sympathy
with these passionate yet superficial, these
dreamy, poetical and altogether charming
people. / have witnessed the fete in the
houses of the rich and the novels of the
poor, and though when set down in cold
type they seem like silly child's play and
superstitious mummery, | assure you that
the actual scenic effect, combined with the
spirit of the season and the loving earn
estness of the participants, makes the per-
formance one by no means to be despised.
Let me give you prosaic
OUTLINE OF THE PICTURE
The glamour of romance and the halo of
religious sentiment you mast fill in for
yourself
The hacienda mansion wherein / wit
messed my first posada contained so many
rooms that to have visited them all in one
day would have been a wearisome task.
During this sacred season, when children
and grandchildren, relatives even to re-
mote cousins, and friends and neighbors.
were assembled, there were probably not
less than 400 people, including the serv-
ants, lodged within the rambling, moss
grown walls; and yet there was no APP
pearence of crowding or confusion. BY
the way, one of the most true and real
istic descriptions of Mexican hacienda life
may be found in Pomona" that incompar-
able book by the late Helen Hunt Jack
son, in her picture of Sonora Morenos
abode.
In the casa of which | speak brancard,
or portable wooden platform, had been pre-
pared with moss, pasteboard and green
boughs, to represent the mountainous road
to Bethlehem; and on this mimic roadway
was placed 4 figure of the Virgin, seated
on donkey, while Joseph walked by her
side with staff and scrip in hand and an
angel with outspread wings glided before
them. The images, borrowed from the
village sadctuary, were appropriately
dressed Tor the occasion, and in the little
unndaro Aonlyax- I u
qualntance, having seen him several times
on Palm Sundays, figuring in Christ's ''tri-
umphal procession"
THE BRANCARD,
With its by no means light load was borne
aloft on the shoulders of six Maids of
Honor, all dressed in white, with long
white wells and crowns of lilies. These |
" Attendants of the Virgin as they are
called, were accompanied by six torch |
bearers, followed by musicians, who played
a spirited accompaniment to the litany.
Then came the heads of the family-par-
ents and grandparents, next the guests and
children, and lastly the servants-a lengthy
procession, you may be sure, each person
carrying lighted candle.
In this order We traversed the corridors
and principal apartments of the great casa.
the line of march having been previously
marked out by arches and decorations of
green branches, all chanting a litany to
the Virgin, the responses fora pro no6is) be-
ing made by the children Pilgrims"
we called ourselves, and as we passed from
room to room, several hundred voices sing
ing in unison with varying accent, Span
ish, Aztec, French, German and English,
the chant swelling i'll sonorous notes or
dying away in dirge-like strains, family
echoed by the tail of the procession from
far-away corridors, or ringing in the lofty
Wanted ceilings, the torches now flashing,
now wavering and growing dim, the effect
was fantastic in the extreme.
When the Pilgrims have nine times
completed the appointed circuit, they halt !
at the door of room which is supposed to
represent the residence of a Bethlehemite
family, and he who personates .Jeseph